For better or worse, the name on everybody’s lips is Rachel Zegler. The West Side Story star has found herself at the cross section of internet discourse and Hollywood gossip after her latest film, Snow White, flopped at the box office, earning a dismal $43 million domestically and just $87 million globally in its opening weekend after reportedly costing at least $350 million to make and market.
Entertainment insiders are always primed to find somebody to blame for a failure on this scale. In Snow White’s case, that scapegoat seems to be Snow White herself. But try as those voices might to implicate Zegler, the discourse seems to be having the opposite effect: The more that comes to light about Zegler and the Snow White debacle, the better 23-year-old Zegler looks to many observers.
Zegler and Snow White’s difficulties began long before the film hit theaters on March 21. From the instant her casting was announced in June 2021, she was subject to racism and vitriol from conservative-leaning Disney fans, who were irate that Zegler, a Latina, had been chosen to play Snow White. Things got thornier when the outspoken Zegler called her film’s ancient source material “weird” and said that the remake would take a “different approach” to the classic fairytale—and messier still when Zegler expressed her solidarity with Palestine in the wake of the war in Gaza.
That was reportedly the straw that broke Disney’s back. Tatiana Siegel, Variety’s executive editor of film and media, reported this week that Snow White producer Marc Platt flew to New York to talk with Zegler about the ramifications of a tweet she posted right after thanking fans for watching the film’s first trailer: “and always remember, free palestine.”
“The actress, whose relationship with the studio began to unravel in 2022 during a contentious West Side Story awards season campaign and continued as she trashed the beloved original Snow White, stood her ground, and the post remained,” wrote Siegel. Per her report, Disney was forced to pay for additional security for Snow White star Gal Gadot, an Israeli who showed support for her country in the wake of the October 7 attacks, after Zegler’s tweet. According to Siegel, Disney also hired a “social media guru” to vet all of Zegler’s posts after she disparaged Donald Trump following his 2024 reelection, suggesting that the studio viewed her as a liability—and a costly one at that. (Vanity Fair has reached out to Disney for comment.)
By the time Snow White premiered, Disney seemed to be doubling down on that narrative. At the very least, it was putting a conspicuous distance between itself and its star. The Snow White premiere was scaled down to an afternoon event that was closed to the press. People reported that a source with knowledge of the situation said this was standard practice for Disney’s family films, though Moana 2 was given a traditional premiere party just a few months earlier. Unnamed sources speculated that Disney was unhappy with Zegler specifically. “The reality is Rachel Zegler should not be playing Snow White,” one anonymous source from another studio told Vulture ahead of the premiere.
Regardless of Disney’s alleged feelings, Zegler has received plenty of support in the wake of Snow White’s failure (and the subsequent finger-pointing). After the Variety story went live, Zegler trended on social media, with many fans applauding her courage. “Rachel Zegler RULES and so obviously has a lifetime of incredible roles & performances ahead of her,” wrote film critic and podcaster David Ehrlich on X. Even her detractors have faced swift internet backlash. Actor Jonah Platt, son of Snow White producer Marc, accused Zegler on Instagram of “dragging her personal politics” into promoting the movie and, as a result, damaging the movie’s box office potential. Zegler fans raked Platt so thoroughly over the coals for his comment that he deleted it. Zegler’s pro-Palestine tweet remains up on her X page.
Fans aren’t the only ones publicly supporting Zegler. Actress Melissa Barrera, who was fired from Scream 7 for allegedly engaging in “hate speech” while expressing her own support for Palestine, shared an Instagram post to her Stories that said that far from making Zegler look difficult or radical, the whisper campaign actually made her look “cool as hell and full of integrity.” On Bluesky, journalist Mark Harris described Siegel’s story as a “hit job” and accused Disney of waging “a campaign” to blame Snow White’s failure squarely on Zegler’s shoulders. “It is very clearly an attempt to blame the movie’s failure on her expressed politics,” Harris wrote. “It’s astonishingly graceless, and it’s not honest.” By Thursday morning, over 50 other journalists had signed an open letter to Variety strongly condemning Siegel’s article. (Vanity Fair has reached out to Siegel, as well as Zegler, for comment.)
